2nd hard drive problems wiht XP

[darjud]

Hey all- I need some help!

I installed my old hd on my new computer which runs windows XP home. (I hate it)

I did this in order to use the old drive as a backup. I still kept my old files on it. It worked fine, and I was able to use it to back up my new files when I formatted my master drive (drive c and restored windows xp.

Once I restored it, the old drive worked fine. No problems.

I encountered another problem and decided to once again back up the files I wanted to keep onto the old drive and reformat and restore windows xp once again. (I hate xp and therefore I am constantly trying to change things on it- my hatred comes from my limited knowledge on this os system).

I backed up my files as I did before, formatted drive c (as I did before wiht the restore disk) and when I logged on this time, My 2nd drive was not in "my computer".

I checked out the Bios and it is listed as the slave. I checked out device maanger and it shows it there with no problems.

In the disk manager area, it shows it with NO DRIVE LETTER and lists it as a basic drive. The only option I can do is delete the partition and I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE the data on this drive.

So if it is recognized by my bios, and in the device manager, why is it not in "my computer" as a accessible drive? How can I fix this problem while not losing the data on the drive itself?

Please help.

 

[wolluf]

Is the drive ntfs or fat32 (I'd suspect fat32 from what you've said).

If its fat32 - can you boot from a win98 boot floppy and access it from there? (

http://www.bootdisk.com

if you haven't one).

If its ntfs, you could get ntfsdos from

http://www.sysinternals.com

(freeware - enables you to read ntfs from a dos - win98 boot floppy) & try accessing it again.

Also, worth getting diagnostic utility from the drive manufacturer's website - to check drive is ok.

(presume you didn't originally set it up using overlay software - seems very unlikely as you've had it recognised previously).

 

[jbotz]

You may also need to right-click on the drive (on the left side of the screen) and choose write signature before XP will recognize it.

 

[darjud]

Thanks for the replies! I ended up solving the problem by switching the old drives and making the old one the master and the new one the slave to see what would happen when it booted.

Come to find out that the second drive had a program installed on it called "GO BACK" by Roxio.

It's a restore program and it reconfigures the boot sector of the drive, which is what caused Windows not to recognize it.

I disabled it on the old drive, switched them back and it now works the way it should.

I still hate XP wiht a passion. I think they made it a lousy program on purpose so we would all buy the next OS system they put out.